About Research at UH Manoa

The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a Research University producing “very high” research activity, with extramural funding averaging $333 million per year over the past five years. Factoring in the number of earned doctorates, number of full-time graduate students, total federal obligations, and total R&D expenditures, the National Science Foundation currently ranks UH Mānoa 71st among the top research universities in the United States. UH Mānoa is one of only a handful of land-, sea- and space-grant universities.

On a worldwide stage, UH Mānoa is ranked between 101-150 on the Shanghai Jiao Tong index “Academic Ranking of World Universities 2012.” This equates with the top 54-67 universities in the United States. In 2013, UH Manoa was elected to membership in the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, the leading consortium of research universities for the region. APRU represents 45 premier research universities—with a collective 2 million students and 120,000 faculty members—from 16 economies in the most dynamic and diverse region of the world.

The largest and oldest of the UH campuses, UH Mānoa offers a diverse array of undergraduate and graduate degrees, including more than 50 distinct PhD programs.

The university operates some of the world’s most distinctive research infrastructure, harnessing its unique position at the center of the Pacific Ocean to excel internationally in fields such as ocean and earth sciences and astronomy.